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Hartley: Join me in quietly celebrating Shutupfora Day

Todd Hartley
I’m With Stupid

This week, I was going to write about a recent controversy that occurred at the University of Michigan. To wit: It seems the university has some weird policy wherein students are allowed to choose the gender pronouns by which they would like to be addressed in the official campus roster. This is supposedly meant to help professors identify students in ways that won’t accidentally offend the students.

Apparently, some kids who don’t identify as a specific gender don’t like to be addressed as “he/him,” “she/her” or even “they,” so somebody dreamed up words like “zir” and “zi.” I have no idea what those are supposed to mean, but then I’ve never had a problem with someone calling me by the wrong pronouns and have yet to go shopping for new ones.

The controversy arose when one enterprising young man decided he wanted to be addressed as “His Majesty” and entered that into the university’s records. His reasoning was that while “His Majesty” is decidedly not a real pronoun, neither are “zir” and “zi.” Since everyone was being completely arbitrary about what they wished to be called, he was free to choose whatever he wanted, and he wanted to be “His Majesty.”



His Majesty’s choice was basically a prank intended to point out the absurdity of the university’s pronoun policy, but the joke, to no one’s surprise, has not gone over well with the university’s LGBTQP population, which has never been known for its sense of humor.

According to reports, all the lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transsexuals, (not sure what the Q stands for) and pansexuals are in an uproar because they think the student wishing to be addressed as “His Majesty” is anti-LGBTQP and has no right to choose such an identifier as his pronoun, while they have the right to choose made-up nonsense words and throw hissy-fits if professors don’t get the words right.




Anyway, that’s what I was going to write about. As some of you may know, the ongoing wimpification of America’s college students is a common theme here at “I’m With Stupid,” and I was going to use His Majesty’s story as another opportunity to point out the hypocrisy of those who cry the loudest for tolerance while being incredibly intolerant themselves.

I was going to mention all of that, but then it dawned on me that what we don’t need is another braying voice contributing to all the noise. No, what we really need, I realized, is a little peace and quiet. If we could, as a nation, just take a short break from all this caterwauling and incessant whining, I think it might do us a lot of good.

With that in mind, here’s what I propose: This coming Monday is Columbus Day. I’ve never really understood why we celebrate a guy who “discovered” a place where 30 million people already lived, so I say, instead of honoring Columbus with all our traditional Columbus Day activities, let’s celebrate a new holiday.

Say hello to “Shutupfora Day.”

In case you’re wondering, it’s pronounced “Shut-up-for-a Day,” and it’s really easy to celebrate. All you have to do is shut up for 24 hours.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying you have to take a vow of silence for the day. You can still talk to your family, friends and coworkers. It might be nice if you don’t argue politics, religion or guns with them, but that’s up to you. You can chat away all you want.

What you can’t do, if you want to celebrate Shutupfora Day correctly, is go on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or any other social media site to crow about your latest bike ride or express your outrage over something you read about on some website.

You can’t leave a comment on some guy’s blog because you disagree with what he wrote, and you can’t fly off the handle and accuse someone of intolerance because he, she or it called you “her” instead of “zir.”

Honestly, for one day, if we can all accept that no one cares what we think, what we’re up to or what we had for breakfast, and if we can all refrain from expressing our opinions and outrage, I think we’d all be a little happier. So I don’t know about you, but on Columbus Day, as much as I’m capable, I plan to shut up. And I urge you — each and every one of you — to shut up, too.

Shhh! To read more or leave a comment (but not on Columbus Day), visit zerobudget.net.